Pages

05 April 2009

So by popular request, here's a walk though the presentation Lisa from Massachusetts entered to win our much ballyhoo-d contest. As I mentioned on Friday, she chose for her theme the Pysanka school of decorative arts. And specifically a Pysanka Easter egg. I keep forgetting that we're a week from Easter, but her basing a kitchen design on a Ukrainian Easter egg is timely in addition to being brilliant.

I mentioned earlier that I'm a push over for ethnicity of any stripe, but in addition to that aspect of her entry, Lisa took two disparate things --an Easter egg and a kitchen-- and merged them into something fantastic. I'm really struck by her instinct here, it's design in every sense of the word. My idea behind this contest was togive people an excuse to dream up something for the sheer joy of using imagination. I was hoping that someone would run with it the way Lisa did. I wasn't expecting anyone to, but as soon as her entry arrived on Thursday I was thrilled to see someone had. You can click on these images and they'll expand to a size large enough where you can read her notes.

This is not a kitchen that's going to end up in Lisa's home any time soon, but the point of pushing into the realm of what's possible is to discover buried passions and ideas that will make it into her actual kitchen and home.

She's not a designer by the way. She referred to herself as a regular Jane in her entry. Well, I do this for a living and I have a lot to learn from this entry. All too often, it's easier to think of my limitations than it is my possibilities. I find her entry an inspiration and in showing the bulk of it here, I hope you can see how I made the decision I did. Many thanks to everyone who sent me an entry. I hope that in sitting down to write down your thoughts you were able to see something you wouldn't have otherwise.